{"id":656255,"date":"2026-10-16T06:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T06:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/656255\/"},"modified":"2026-10-16T06:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T06:08:09","slug":"west-corks-new-little-berries-packs-a-big-health-punch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/656255\/","title":{"rendered":"West Cork’s new little berries packs a big health punch"},"content":{"rendered":"

Grown on a hardy shrub that thrives in marginal Irish land, aronia, a small, dark purple fruit, just might be one of the healthiest berries you\u2019ve never heard of.<\/p>\n

Thanks to sky-high levels of polyphenols, its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties can help strengthen the immune system, reduce inflammation, and prevent disease.<\/p>\n

A native of North America, where it\u2019s called chokeberry \u2014 a name that seems unlikely to grab the right kind of attention \u2014 aronia is now being grown commercially in Ireland.<\/p>\n

In West Cork, Steve Collins, who grows four acres of these berries, has set up a company called PhyterBerry Aronia to bring this product to market. Irish aronia juice is available in 330ml bottles (\u20ac6.95) online, in health food shops and independent retailers.<\/p>\n

Collins and his family \u2014 wife Claire and three children \u2014 grow aronia at their home on Derry Duff Farm, high in the Shehy Mountains close to the Cork-Kerry border. Getting there means trusting GPS, driving up and up through a maze of winding roads on the side of Cork\u2019s highest mountain, while being offered glimpses across the Coomhola and Borlin Valleys, all the way down to Bantry Bay.<\/p>\n

\"DrDr Steve Collins recommends including a shot of this tart, dark purple aronia juice in your daily diet<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an incredibly beautiful vista, particularly on a clear, sunny day, but this is also challenging land. Although it can be hard to see how anyone could make a living from the poor quality, rocky soil, this 54-hectare, organically certified farm produces a diverse range of food, including Dexter beef, pigs, chickens, bees, blueberries and, specifically, aronia berries.<\/p>\n

Aronia is a focus and a passion for Collins, a medical doctor who holds a PhD in nutrition and has 35 years of experience working on international development projects in Africa, researching and treating malnutrition and starvation.<\/p>\n

He and Claire bought this remote, deserted farm in 2005, with plans to make the land productive. \u201cI wanted to find what you could grow on really marginal land here,\u201d says Collins as we sit at the kitchen table of his house, which is nestled into the hillside, facing out to make the most of the view.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was trying loads of different things and someone suggested aronia. I got some seeds from the Agroforestry Trust [in England] and they grew all right. Then I started looking at the nutritional aspect and I was like, \u2018Whoa!\u2019 So then I took it more seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taking a regenerative and restorative approach to farming, Collins trialled many different crops. Blueberries \u2014 available locally under the Derry Duff name \u2014 and aronia have been the most successful.<\/p>\n

Happy to see aronia thriving on the farm, Collins did a deep dive into its attributes. It\u2019s the kind of thing he does professionally. He is the co-founder of Valid International, an NGO with the stated mission of improving global health and nutrition interventions.<\/p>\n

\"ThrivingThriving Aronia berries at Steve’s farm near Bantry in West Cork.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s what I was doing in Africa. I create nutritional products and then get them to people who need them,\u201d says Collins. \u201cThere are two things that really move me to be active. One is the public health crisis. In Africa, it was starvation, and now in Ireland, it\u2019s metabolic syndrome.\u201d<\/p>\n

Metabolic syndrome is a combination of risk factors \u2014 including central or abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, poor blood glucose control, and high cholesterol \u2014 that can raise your chances of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and stroke. According to the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing in 2022, metabolic syndrome is \u201chighly prevalent in older adults in Ireland\u201d. A total of 40% of the population over 50 meet the diagnostic criteria.<\/p>\n

Recommendations for lifestyle changes to prevent or reduce metabolic syndrome include regular exercise, avoiding smoking, and adopting what is often called the Mediterranean diet. This way of eating \u2014 with lots of fruit, vegetables, wholegrains, legumes, and olive oil \u2014 is high in polyphenols.<\/p>\n

A longitudinal study carried out in Spain over more than a dozen years concluded that a high polyphenol intake was associated with a 20% lower risk of mortality.<\/p>\n

As Collins works to expand the PhyterBerry brand of Irish aronia juice, he acknowledges that he can\u2019t grow all the berries himself. He has been working with farmers locally and around the country, from Killarney to Cape Clear, Lismore and Wexford, to develop a sustainable Irish network of growers.<\/p>\n

\u201cPhyterBerry is set up to ultimately manufacture and make aronia products from locally grown aronia berries. We want to sell more, so we need suppliers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to grow aronia, if you\u2019ve got marginal land and you want to grow it, then we will give you a route to market.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collins recommends including a shot of this tart, dark purple aronia juice in your daily diet. It\u2019s an easy way of upping your polyphenol intake while also supporting Irish growers and making the most of a nutrient-dense fruit that can be grown in otherwise unproductive farmland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Grown on a hardy shrub that thrives in marginal Irish land, aronia, a small, dark purple fruit, just…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1649,103,61,60],"class_list":["post-656255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health-nutrition","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}